


Bring Light to All of My Darkness

by xhorizen



Category: Hanson (Band)
Genre: Child Abuse, Childhood Friends, F/M, Isaac is a bit of an asshole at the beginning, Panic Attacks, Pre-Fame to Future Fic, Starvation, Tags will evolve as the story is written, time jumps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:46:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23190367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xhorizen/pseuds/xhorizen
Summary: Zac and Ava become friends from a very early age. How will their relationship evolve as they figure out how to navigate fame, adolescence, feelings, love, and growing up? It won't always be pretty, and it will never be easy. Will they be able to figure out how to make it through together or were they destined to be broken from the start?
Relationships: Zac Hanson/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Weezer - My Best Friend

** Zac **  
_1990_

The moment that the new family next door moved in, I knew that I was going to marry the little girl around my age. I was only 5, but I was a mature 5! I knew how to hold doors open for my mom and sister, and I knew that it was polite to stand up from the table whenever someone else came to join it. I didn’t really know why, but that’s what my dad does, so that’s what I do, too. One of my older brothers, Isaac, made fun of me for it, telling me that I’m a brown-noser and a copycat. Mom smacked him upside the head the first and only time she heard him say that to me, so I know it’s not a good thing, but I still don’t get why. 

Anyways, so I saw the family’s little girl running around, she looked like she was my age and I ran out the front door, forgetting to pull it closed behind me. I ran to the adults talking near the moving van - my parents, and two people that were close to their age. 

“Zac, you need to go back and close the front door.” Dad looked down at me with a look that clearly showed I shouldn’t protest if I wanted to have a chance at meeting her. I took a deep breath and turned around, sprinting back to the front door and slamming it shut in my haste, before running back.

“Hi, I’m Zac. Is that your daughter?” I spoke to the two people I didn’t know, ignoring the squawk of protest that was probably from my mom about my lack of manners. The woman, probably her mom, looked down at me and smiled the kind of smile that reminded me of my mom. 

“Hi Zac. I’m Elaine and yes, that is my daughter. Her name is Ava, she’s four. How old are you?” 

I knew how old I was, I just had a birthday a few weeks ago, but I still looked back at my mom for confirmation. She smiled and nodded at me and I turned back around. “I’m five, I just had a birthday a couple weeks ago, we went to the aquarium and got to see the sharks and pet stingrays and then they brought my cake out and it was the shape of a sea turtle!” 

“Sea turtles are my favorite animal.” A quiet voice whispered from under the moving truck. I snuck a peek around Elaine’s legs and saw the girl - Ava - sitting on the ground, her arms around her legs, looking at me intensely. 

“Hi, I’m Zac!” I moved around her mom and sit down in front of her, putting my hand out in front of her so she could shake it like adults did in the movies. She just looked down at my hand, then back up at me, and leaned away from me. 

“I’m Ava.” Her voice was so soft, I could barely hear it, but even if she wouldn’t take my hand, she was still talking to me, so I just let my hand fall to my side. 

“My favorite animal is a great white shark! They’re really big and they eat lots of animals in the ocean, but they don’t really eat many people, just a few, but mostly that’s by accident because they think we look like seals from underneath the water. They just come up and take a bite and then they realize it’s a human and spit us out!” I took a deep breath, ready to tell her even more about sharks, when she jumped up from the ground and ran to the man I hadn’t met.

“Daddy!” She threw her arms around his legs and buried her face into his knees. “He’s scaring me!” 

Embarrassment filled my stomach and I felt tears welling up in my eyes. I rushed to my own mom and scrunched up her shirt into my fists. “I didn’t mean to make her sad, mom.” My bottom lip trembled as she crouched down at my level, smoothing a hand through my hair. 

“I know baby, but you are so passionate about sharks and I don’t think she was expecting you to be so expressive about it!” She stood up and looked at Elaine. “I’m sorry about that.” 

I didn’t want my mom to apologize for me, it made me feel like I did something wrong and I didn’t! I pulled away from my mom and walked away from the group, kicking at a loose pile of dirt near the edge of the driveway. Anger filled my body and I balled my fists, wanting to throw myself down on the ground and start crying and screaming. I didn’t do anything wrong, Ava got upset over nothing!

Footsteps approached me from behind and I glanced over my shoulder to see Ava walking to me. “What do you want?” I asked. It was rude, I could tell even before the words came out of my mouth that what I was going to say wasn’t going to be nice, but I couldn’t help it. 

“I’m sorry.” She was next to me at that point and gazing at me as intensely as she had been just a few minutes beforehand. “Sharks scare me, I won’t go into the water because I’m afraid one is going to come and eat me up. I saw it in a movie once, but don’t tell my mom. Lizzie was watching it and she let me sit with her as long as I promised not to tattle.” 

“YOU GOT TO WATCH JAWS?!” How unfair, my mom wouldn’t let me watch _Jaws_ until I was older because it wasn’t a movie for little kids.

“Stop yelling!” Ava clamped her hands over her ears and looked at her parents nervously. I followed suit and saw all four adults were still having a conversation, paying us no mind.

“I can’t believe you got to see that!” I said in a lowered voice. Ava wouldn’t look at me, even after she let her hands fall to her side. “Are you mad at me?” 

She nodded. 

“I’m sorry I yelled. I get really excited about things and then I just let it all explode.” I bit my lip and looked at the ground for a minute before speaking again. “If I promise to try to not yell, can we start over?” I glanced up at her just in time to see Ava looking me up and down.

She did it for a minute before a huge smile broke out on her face, revealing that she was missing her two front teeth. “Yeah, I think we can do that!” 

“Great!” I grabbed her hand and ran up to our parents. “Mom, can I go show Ava all of the cool toys I got for my birthday?!” 

“Zac, I don’t know. The Miller’s just got here and I think we’ve already taken up enough of their time for today. Maybe once they settle in, we can have a playdate.” 

I looked over at Ava and saw an expression on her face that I’m pretty sure matched the one on mine. Neither of us was happy with that answer, but we knew once the adults made their minds up, we didn’t get a say. 

“I’ll see you around.” I said glumly, letting her hand drop from my own as I followed my parents back to our house next door. 

\--

The next morning, mom woke me up bright and early and ignored all the protests I gave to stay in bed. “If you get up and do all of your school work without fussing, then I have a special surprise for you at lunch!” 

I sat up in bed, contemplating the offer. On one hand, I hate getting up in the morning. On a scale of all of the worst things in the world, getting up in the morning was the WORST thing that ever happened to me. On the other hand, what if we were gonna go to the park after school? Or maybe we were gonna go play laser tag?! 

I hopped out of bed and raced to get ready. I was down at my spot at the table with my books in front of me before Isaac was even done eating breakfast. 

“Oh look at you, letting mom bribe you with something in order to get you to actually do your work. You’re such a brown noser, Zac.” Isaac crossed his eyes at me and then made an ugly face, which I matched right back to him. 

“I’ll tell mom you’re still calling me that and then you’ll be in trouble.” 

Isaac glared at me, but he knew I would tell mom at the drop of a hat, so he just started down at his bowl of cereal, looking like he wanted to kill it. 

Doing my schoolwork was the second worst thing that’s ever happened to me in my entire life. I have workbooks that I have to do at least five pages of every day, in all different topics, and some of them are so hard. Tracing my letters is really complicated, I can see how letters and numbers look, but then I go to write them down and sometimes I write them backwards. I try really hard to do it right, but if I’m in what my mom refers to as “a funk”, then nothing helps me write any better. 

Math is almost as hard, the numbers kind of jump around a lot, or I just read them backwards. Mom had Isaac sit with me sometimes, writing problems down on a white board and helping me figure them out, but he has no patience. My other older brother, Taylor, is the one who will sit with me for hours, even when I’m crying and frustrated because I just can’t do it. I heard mom and dad talking one day about how I might need to take a test for something, to see if I need to go to a special school. I’m not really sure what that means, but I don’t want to go to a different school. I like being at home with Isaac and Taylor and having my mom as my teacher. 

Luckily, the funk didn’t develop and I got all of my schoolwork done right as mom was preparing to make lunch. 

“Mom, guess what?! I completed all of my writing and my math and I practiced my sight words with Taylor.” 

Mom smiled down at me and ran a hand through my short hair. “Look at you, sweet boy. Come help me make lunch and then I can tell you what your surprise is after.” 

Lunch was macaroni and cheese and hot dogs, one of my favorite meals! Mom wouldn’t let me touch anything on the stove, but she did put the hot noodles into a bowl once they were cooked and let me mix together the powdered cheese, milk, and butter. I accidentally flung a few pieces of macaroni out of the bowl and onto the floor, but mom just laughed and picked them up before cleaning it up with a towel. 

We got everything on the table and I noticed there were too many plates on the table. “Mom, is daddy coming home to eat with us?” 

Mom smiled and shook her head. She started to speak when the doorbell went off. “Looks like your surprise is here, Zac!” She walked to the front door with me right on her heels. When the door opened, I saw Elaine standing there, and if Elaine was there, then…

“AVA!” I yelled, seeing her peek out from behind her mom’s legs. Her hands flew to her ears and I clapped my hands over my mouth. “Oh no, Ava, I’m so sorry, I’m just excited to see you!” 

Mom and I backed up to let the other two into the house and Ava came out from behind her mom, a small smile on her face. “Thank you for saying sorry.” She took a step forward and took my hand. “But I’m excited to see you too!” 

I clasped her hand in mine and practically dragged her to the dining room table, eager to show her what we were having for lunch.


	2. Chapter 2

**Ava**   
_1992_

I really hated school. There weren’t many things I hated, mostly because my mom didn’t like it when I used the word, but school was something I dreaded every single day. First grade was so hard, I’m supposed to be reading more books without pictures and what’s the point if they don’t have pictures? How else would you know what everything is supposed to look like? 

I envied my best friend, Zac, because he was homeschooled. He’d never had to go to a normal school, so he never had to deal with being alone at play time and sitting alone during lunch. He had two brothers and two sisters, even if Avie was a baby, so he was never alone. And Mrs. Hanson is the best teacher ever, always giving them snacks and helping when they had questions. She even lets Zac and his brothers practice singing for a few hours every day! They are so good, I love going over there and listening to them. Isaac can be kinda mean sometimes, he really likes picking on Zac, but Taylor is always so nice, he makes Isaac feel bad when he’s being a jerk and actually helps Zac if he has problems. 

Kids at my school are really mean to me. I don’t talk a lot, my mom told me it’s because I’m just a reserved kid, but I think I’m just so used to not being heard that I don’t even try anymore. Dad yells a lot, about anything and everything. His voice is so loud that it hurts my ears and I hate it when he does that. When he starts yelling, I try to go over to Zac’s house so that we can play together and I don’t have to listen to my dad screaming, but if I can’t leave, I mostly hide in my closet. I put a couple of blankets and pillows on the ground and my favorite stuffed sea turtle, Shelly, so that I can have my own safe place. It works, but only sometimes. 

Mom used to fight back with Dad, yelling back at him to stop yelling, but now she just stays as quiet as I try to. It used to make me angry, I wanted her to stand up to him, but I guess she didn’t feel like that was the best option. I’ve heard her crying after some of their fights - the first time, I went to her and crawled in her lap and she pretended she just had allergies and that’s what made her cry, but I didn’t believe her. The second time, she just looked at me and told me to go to my room, that she had things to do. I don’t hear her cry anymore, but for some reason, that scares me even more than the yelling does. 

Even though the Hanson family always had family days on Sundays, they always included me in them if my parents let me. I would get dressed up and go to church with them, even though I wasn’t raised going to church and I don’t understand most of what they say there, and then I go back to their house with them to have a big Sunday lunch, followed by either playing with Zac or watching him and his brothers sing. Sunday’s were my favorite day of the week for that whole reason - it felt nice to be included in such a large family. 

Church was extra special this time because Zac and Isaac and Taylor were going to be singing with the choir! They’d been practicing a song, I can’t remember the name of it, for weeks and weeks, and it was finally time to show the whole church how amazing they sounded. When we walked into the big doors, Zac reached out for my hand and gave it a tight squeeze. 

“Ava, I’m gonna puke.”

I looked at the adults around us and quickly pulled him to the side, getting him out of the crowd. “Did you eat something gross from under Taylor’s bed on a dare again?” 

Zac shook his head. “No, I feel like I have a bunch of grasshoppers in my stomach and they’re all jumping around and making me feel like I’m going to be sick. I could barely eat any breakfast this morning!” 

I reached out and put my hand that was not in Zac’s hand on his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze, mimicking what my mom does when I’m upset. “I think you’re nervous, Zac. You’ve never performed in front of anyone who isn’t your family before.” 

“That's not true!” His voice raised and I flinched on instinct. He made a face and lowered his voice when he started talking again. “I’ve sang in front of you all the time! I probably sang in front of you more than I’ve sang in front of anyone.” 

“I’m your best friend, silly.” I smiled and leaned into him, giving him a huge hug. “Of course you wouldn’t be nervous around me, you trust me.” 

I felt Zac’s arms circle my body and squeeze extra tight. “You met me at a very strange moment in my life, Ava.” 

I couldn’t hold back the laugh that immediately built up inside of me. “We met when we were four, Zac, how is that strange?” 

He pulled back and looked down at the ground. “Me and my brothers, us singing together all the time, it’s kinda weird isn’t it? I love it, we all love it, but I’m the only one of my friends who does this. That makes it strange right? And what if I’m bad? Would you tell me?” Zac brought his eyes back up to mine and I saw they were shiny, it looked like he was about to start crying.

“Zac, I will always be honest with you, I promise. I think you sing like an angel, and I’m not just making that up. You and your brothers have great voices and you’re going to impress every person in the pews today.” 

Zac looked into my eyes for a few seconds, and I smiled, trying to seem as though I was encouraging him. He returned the smile and grabbed my hand, turning toward the door into the chapel. “Come on, I think it’s almost time to start!” 

\--

I didn’t get a chance to talk to Zac until we were back at his house, sitting next to each other at the table waiting for lunch to be served. The performance was amazing, it was so good, better than he and his brothers have ever performed before. After they finished, they were surrounded by all of their parents' friends, congratulating them on how good they were and talking their parents' ears off. I tried to squeeze in next to Zac, he still looked kind of nervous, but I kept getting shoved behind the older people. Even in the car, I sat next to him, but Mr. and Mrs. Hanson were going on and on about how great they had done and how they showed so much potential and how they really could be going places, whatever that means. 

Once lunch was on our plates in front of us, everyone ate pretty quick and mostly quiet, except for Avery because she was just a baby and making all sorts of crazy baby noises. I kept glancing over at my best friend, hoping to see him looking back at me, too, but I never managed to catch his eye. He was so engrossed with his food, but I guess he hadn’t eaten much breakfast, so he was probably starving. 

When we were done, we took our plates to the sink and were given permission to be excused up to the room Zac shared with his brothers. We raced down the hall, Zac beating me to the door by less than half of a second. We tumbled inside and made ourselves at home in the little space between the end of Zac and Taylor’s bunk bed and the wall. It wasn’t really a hiding spot, but it was enclosed enough that it felt like one. Sometimes we would hang a blanket from the top bunk and throw it over ourselves and it felt like we were in a dungeon or something. It didn’t really matter where, just as long as we were together. 

I sat against the wall and crossed my arms over my chest, feeling the need to protect myself. I’d never felt the need to keep part of myself from Zac before, but all of the feelings building up in my chest weren’t nice ones and I didn’t want to show it. 

Zac hung the blanket from the top bunk and pulled the sides down so that we were completely enclosed inside of it. He sat down next to me and nudged me with his shoulder. Even though it was dark, I knew he was smiling at me. 

“What did you think of the performance?” He asked softly, almost sounding shy. Zac and shy are two words I would never put in a sentence together, but I didn’t know what else the emotion could be called. 

“You guys were really good.” I replied, shrugging a little and tightening my arms across my chest. 

Zac stayed silent for a minute before speaking again. “That’s it? Just good?” 

I shrugged again. “Yeah. You sounded like you guys sound when I’m listening to you practice most days, ya know?” 

“So we just sounded like we normally do? Not extra great or wonderful?” The tone in his voice immediately put me on edge and I pulled away from him, able to see his face now that my eyes had adjusted to the dark. 

“What are you talking about? Sounding good is a good thing, I even said that you sound really good. Why are you saying it like I’m being mean?”

“Because you are being mean!” Zac’s voice rose in volume and immediately, I shrank away from him, curling into the corner of the wall. “We just sang live for the first time in front of a ton of people and you know I was so nervous and all you can tell me is that we were good? We weren’t any better than that?” 

Tears formed in my eyes and I blinked rapidly, trying to keep them from falling. I hate it when he gets upset at all, let alone upset with me, and then he had to raise his voice and now all I wanted to do was go home. 

“I wanna go home.” I said as a few tears slid down my face. Zac immediately stopped talking and looked at me, a worried look quickly overtaking his eyes. 

“Ave, what’s wrong?” He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. When I flinched away from his touch, he frowned. “Ava, I’m sorry. I know I raised my voice, I’m sorry.” 

I took a few deep breaths before sitting up straighter, allowing myself to lean into Zac. “No, I’m sorry. I know that you’d never hurt me, ever, I don’t know why I reacted that way.” 

Zac slipped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me even closer to him, if that was possible, and leaned his cheek against the top of my head. “You’re right, I would never hurt you.” 

We sat like that for a minute, my breathing becoming more regular by the second. I wiped the still damp trail from the tears off of my face and then pulled away so I could look at Zac again. “You guys did amazing, Zac. I’ve never heard you sing like that before, your voices were so clear and beautiful, and everyone couldn’t keep their eyes off of you.” 

Zac bit his lip and looked down at the ground, a small smile on his face. “Could you keep your eyes off of me?” 

“Not for a second.” I reached out and took one of his hands in mine, giving it a tight squeeze. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it since you finished, but all of the grown ups were crowding around you and I just felt like I was in the way.” 

Zac squeezed my hand even tighter and leaned in, letting his forehead rest on my cheek. “No matter how many grown ups are around us, I always want you right there next to me, Ava. Okay? Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for your comments on the first chapter!!! Let me know what you think of this one, I'm so excited to know!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah, sorry for so long between updates! Hopefully a super long chapter will make up for the silence! Please let me know how you like it!

**Zac**   
_1994_

Recording an album was kind of hard. Mom and dad said it would just be me and my brothers singing into microphones while someone recorded our voices, but there was way more to it than that. We couldn’t just sing the song straight through like we normally would - we had to pick sections and try to sing them over and over and over until the guy in the sound booth told us it was good. Sometimes we would have to sing alone and record different parts and it felt really weird to record something without having my brothers right next to me, singing along. I’m not complaining or anything, I know that if we want to be a great band who gets to write and record our own music for tons of people to hear, we have to go through these steps. I just wish that sometimes I wasn’t expected to spend 8 hours a day singing. My throat felt like it was on fire at the end of the day and no matter how much hot water with lemon and honey I drank, it still felt super croaky in the morning. 

The other bad thing about recording an album was being away from Ava. We had a studio booked in Nashville for two weeks and not seeing her during that time was so hard. Our parents let us call each other a couple of times, but not much and even when we did talk, it felt awkward and I’ve never felt awkward with her. It took me a few times to realize it was because when we are together, a lot of the time, we aren’t even talking - We’re just hanging out and doing things separate, but together. It’s harder to do that on the phone. 

To make up for it, the second we got back from Nashville, I threw my bags on my bed before racing next door and knocking impatiently at the door. Before I got four knocks in, it swung open and Ava appeared, launching herself at me before I could really see her face. Her arms wrapped around my neck and she almost knocked me over, but instead I just wrapped my arms around her body and gave her as tight of a hug as she gave to me. 

“I missed you.” She said, her voice sounding shy as she finally pulled away from me. 

“I missed you, too.” I smiled and looked down at the ground, feeling shy right along with her. “Can I come in?” Before Ava could answer, her dad started yelling from the back of the house. She looked over her shoulder and then back at me, her face filled with fear, an unfortunately familiar expression for me to see on her face. “You can come over to my place instead?” 

Ava quickly nodded and closed the door behind her, following on my heels. When we walked in the front door, mom was sifting through the bags of dirty laundry, sorting out whites from colors. She looked up at us and a smile broke out over her face when she saw Ava was with me. 

“Oh sweetheart, we’ve missed you so much!” Mom walked over and gave Ava a big hug, one that she sank into with ease. Mom doesn’t really know too much of what goes on at the Miller household, but she knows enough to know that sometimes Ava just needed a hug from a mother figure and a safe place to escape. Sometimes, I caught her looking at Ava with worry and some other emotion, maybe guilt, on her face, and it always confused me because what would mom have to feel guilty about? Sometimes grown ups can be so complicated. 

“Can we make sandwiches? We can take them up to the treehouse and have a picnic.” The treehouse had only been built for us for Christmas the year before, but it was already a place that felt like a sanctuary. Isaac and Taylor used it, too, but Ava and I used it the most, mostly listening to music on our cassette players and coloring. Sometimes we would talk, mostly about me and my brothers making music and how scared she was of her dad. I even offered for her to live in the treehouse at one point, when her dad was fighting with her mom every single night for over a week, but mom said it wasn’t a good idea. The same look of guilt came over her face and it confused me more than ever. 

“How about you guys just head on up and I’ll bring you lunch in a few minutes? Just let me get the laundry started.”

“Thanks mom!” I grabbed Ava’s hand and started pulling her toward the back door. 

“Thanks Mrs. Hanson!” Ava called over her shoulder, giving mom a wave that was returned in earnest. 

We got up to the tree house and Ava threw her arms around me again. “It’s been so bad without you here with me.” 

My heart sank to the floor and I felt like I was the worst person in the world. “Your dad?” She nodded. “What happened?” She took a deep breath and I recognized the look on her face to mean that tears were going to start soon. 

“H-He started throwing things. He and mom were yelling, but they always do that, ya know? And then I heard a crash, and mom started crying and I thought he had hit her! But then he left the house, slammed the door and took off in his truck, and I came out to make sure mom was okay and she was cleaning up a broken cup from the floor. There was a mark on the wall where it hit, so I know he didn’t hit her, but I was still so scared.”

Tears had started pouring down her face, not even a few words into the story, and I felt so helpless. I wanted to go over and give Mr. Miller a piece of my mind because he really didn’t seem to care how his actions hurt Ava so much. 

“What did your mom say?” I started rubbing my hands up and down her back, like my mom does to me when I’m crying and it makes me feel better. 

“She tried to laugh and say that it was no big deal, but her eyes made her look scared, and anytime there was a noise in the house, her head would look for it and her body would get all tense and I could tell she was nervous that dad was coming back.” She pulled away from me and wiped at her face, trying to get rid of any evidence that she had broken down. 

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here for you.” I mumbled, letting my head drop so that my eyes were staring at the floor. She was my best friend, I was supposed to protect her, that’s what best friends do! How could I have just left her alone when I knew she was going through so much?

The rest of the afternoon floated by, mom brought us lunch and then we sat around, Ava asking me questions about the recording process and making me tell her every single detail of the trip. I wanted to focus more on her, to try to get her to talk more about her feelings, but she’s always been really good at distracting me and getting me to talk about things I really love. When it came time for her to go home, it was way after dark outside. We had watched her dad come home a couple hours before and I could tell she wanted to wait as long as she could before she had to go home. Finally, mom came outside and yelled up at us that I needed to start getting ready for bed, so that was our obvious cue that she had to go home. 

“Everything will be okay. I’m here for you.” I leaned in and gave her a hug after we made our way to the front of her house. “I’m always here.” 

“Thanks Zac. You’re the only person in the world I feel like I can count on.”

\--

Chicago in September wasn’t really cold, but it was a lot different than September in Tulsa. Normally, it was still pretty warm in Tulsa, and we could play in the sprinklers or go to the pool until close to October, but in Chicago, our outdoor activities were a little more limited. I wanted to go to the beach and play in the water, no matter how cold it was supposed to be, but instead, I got locked away in a studio, recording an album with my brothers, and trying really hard not to let it drive me nuts. 

Any time I said something about needing a break or wanting to go outside, Isaac would say something to me like “You should be grateful we have this opportunity, you’re wasting it by acting like such a baby.” Or, my favorite, “You need to grow up or I’m kicking you out of the band.” That one typically made me feel like dirt and I hid away in the bathroom to cry by myself. Taylor always came to find me and reassured me Isaac was just stressed and under a lot of pressure, but I didn’t care. All three of us were stressed and under a lot of pressure, dang it, but I wasn’t treating Isaac or Taylor like I was better than them! 

After one particularly bad day, I ran to my mom as soon as we got home from the studio and wrapped my arms around her, burying my face into her stomach. 

“What’s wrong, baby?” She smoothed a hand through my hair and despite how awful the day had been, I couldn’t help but smile. I loved it when she would call me baby, but I could never tell anyone that, not even Taylor, because then I’d never hear the end of it. It had been years since I was the baby of the family, anyway, but sometimes it just felt nice to be the most important one. 

Instead of replying, I just shrugged. I didn’t want to tell her that I felt like I was under way too much pressure because then I would be doing exactly what Isaac accused me of - Being ungrateful. Mom had been the one to come to Chicago with us while dad stayed behind because he needed to work and someone needed to watch Jess and Avery. Mac, my baby brother, had come with us, too, but he wasn’t even one yet, so he didn’t really count for much. Taking care of four children by herself was hard work though, I knew it because I’d heard her talking to dad and to Mrs. Miller a few times about how she was so happy we were doing this, but how she wished we could do it closer to home. 

“You miss Ava?” Mom guessed and I looked up at her, making eye contact and nodding earnestly. No, that may not have been my primary worry at that point, but she wasn’t wrong - I always missed Ava. Not only that, but Ava’s birthday was coming up soon and I had promised her that we would be home by then. We had never missed each other’s birthdays, in all the times we’d known each other, and I didn’t want to start that now. 

“Can I call her?” I said quietly, glancing at the phone next to the couch we were standing next to. 

“Sure you can, sweetheart. How about you use the one in my bedroom when Mackenzie is up from his nap? That way you can have some privacy.” 

I felt tears building up behind my eyes, but I quickly blinked them away and nodded, not trusting my voice to get beyond the lump in my throat. My mom was really good like that, always knowing the right thing to say and when to say it. I could always count on her to make me feel better, even if it was just by giving me some space to call my best friend. 

Mom made us some lunch and I quickly ate everything - she had made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Normally I didn’t like tomato soup, but then I learned to dip my grilled cheese into it and I changed my mind. 

I would still only eat it with grilled cheese sandwiches, though. Eating it alone is like eating hot ketchup. 

Mackenzie woke up from his nap and as promised, mom moved the phone close to the bed so that I could sit there while talking to Ava. She closed the door behind her and I immediately grabbed the phone, dialing the number I knew by heart. 

“Hello?” Mr. Miller’s voice came through the other side of the phone after a few rings. My stomach tightened and I squirmed in my seat a little bit, feeling uncomfortable to be speaking with him. He rarely ever answered the phone and I didn’t mind that in any way. 

“Uh, oh, hi Mr. Miller. This is Zac.” 

There was silence on the other end of the line. I opened and closed my mouth, then cleared my throat to continue speaking. 

“Uh, Zac Hanson. Ava’s friend.”

More silence came from the other end of the phone. People weren’t normally that quiet when speaking on the phone, and I thought maybe he’d hung up on me, but then I heard the sound of a doorbell going off faintly, so I knew he was still there. 

“Um, anyway. I was calling to see if I could speak to Ava?” My voice shot up in pitch at the end of my question and I hated myself for it immediately. It made me sound like a little kid who was nervous talking to his best friend’s father, and even if that was true, I didn’t want Mr. Miller to know that. 

“No, she can’t speak on the phone right now.” He said gruffly. I waited for him to continue, but when he didn’t, I tried again. 

“Oh, uh, okay. She’s probably busy right? Do you know when she’ll be back? I can try to call back around that time.” 

“No, I don’t.” The tone of his voice made me feel cold inside the whole of my body and I wanted to wrap my arms around myself to put the chill at bay. 

“Oh. Right, yeah, okay. I’ll just try calling back another time.” The tears I thought I’d willed away earlier came flooding to my eyes and I blinked rapidly, letting them fall down my face. 

“Uh huh.” The dial tone sounded before I could say anything else, so I knew I had officially been hung up on. I wanted to scream at Mr. Miller, to tell my mom so she could call him and demand that I should be allowed to speak to his daughter, but I didn’t want mom, or worse, Isaac, to see me cry, so I just buried my head underneath one of my moms pillows and cried until I finally ran out of tears. 

\--

I tried to call Ava almost every single day after I had spoken to Mr. Miller, but each time I did, he was the only one to pick up the phone. I tried to figure out when she would be home to talk, or to see if maybe she had gone to visit family and that’s why she wasn’t available, but he wouldn’t tell me anything useful. When mom told us that we were going to have to stay in Chicago for another week, I immediately called Ava’s house to let her know that I wouldn’t be home in time for her birthday and that I was so sorry and I hoped she could forgive me. As usual, she wasn’t available to take my call, but I begger Mr. Miller to relay the message so that she wouldn't be disappointed when I wasn’t there. He grunted in reply and hung up the phone. I was getting more and more worried about my best friend, to the point that I was spending time in the studio thinking about where she could be and messing things up.

On our last day in Chicago, Isaac, Taylor and I were in the studio while mom was at the rental house, getting everything packed up and ready to go for the next morning. We only had a couple of things to re-record, we thought we’d been good to go a few days before, but then got called back in to fix a few minor things. 

I had one line, only one line, that I needed to record by myself for “The Love You Save” and it took forever to get it right. I kept letting my mind wander, trying to picture Ava at her house, or with her grandma, and it caused me to miss my queue five times in a row. I asked for a break and tore the headphones off of my head, needing a minute outside so I could try to calm down. My worry for Ava had increased after every single call, though I didn’t really know why. Her dad didn’t have to tell me where she was, he didn’t have to explain family decisions to the neighbor kid, but my stomach had filled with more and more knots throughout the three weeks since I’d last seen her.

I sat down on the ground outside of the studio, bringing my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. I buried my face into my legs and took a deep breath, willing my racing heart to slow down so that I could just get it over with so that we could go home. The door to the studio opened and I lifted my head, expecting to see Isaac - He normally followed me when I needed space so that he could berate me for every single mistake I’d made. 

It was Taylor. 

He walked over to me and sat down next to me and stared into the street. He didn’t say anything and I was really glad he didn’t because I didn’t want to talk or answer questions or explain what had me so out of my head. After a few minutes, he reached over and grabbed my hand, giving it a tight squeeze. 

“I know you miss Ava, and I know you’re going crazy inside of your brain. I don’t know how to fix it for you, and I probably can’t, but we’re almost done here, Zac. This is the last thing we need to do before we can leave and go home and you can be a kid again.” 

I turned my head to face him, a frown on my face. “Will it always be this hard? I thought making music was gonna be easy, like when we would just sing in the living room, but this is really hard.” 

Taylor let go of my hand and turned his body so that he was facing me. He put a hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes. “Zac, if you don’t want to do this anymore, you don’t have to. We wanted to be a band because we had fun together and love music, right? If it’s not fun anymore, what’s the point?” 

I didn’t even need to think about my answer before words came tumbling out of my mouth. “No. I want to do this, Tay. I’m in this with you guys and I don’t regret it at all. I just…” I chewed on the inside of my cheek and looked down into my lap. One of my hands reached out to his free hand and took it into my grip, needing to feel like I could count on someone before telling my secret. 

“Does it have to do with Ava?” Taylor guessed and I sighed, nodding. Of course he knew. 

“I haven’t been able to talk to her at all since we’ve gotten here and her birthday was a few days ago and we were supposed to be home for it, ya know? I’ve called her a lot while we’ve been here and Mr. Miller always tells me she isn’t home and that she can’t talk. I asked him to tell her I wouldn’t be home for her birthday and that I was really sorry about it, and I really hope he told her, but I don’t know, Taylor. What if we get home and she hates me because she thinks I’ve completely forgotten about her?” 

Taylor squeezed my shoulder, prompting me to look up. He caught my eye and smiled, which caused me to smile in spite of myself. “You have done everything you can do, Zac. You’ve tried to talk to her and let her know what's going on and yeah, it's not a good feeling not to know why she can’t talk to you, but we’ll be home tomorrow. Can you make it until then?” 

“I’m really glad I have you for a big brother.” I mumbled as I leaned in and threw my arms around his neck. “If it was just Isaac and me, we would just fight all the time and nothing would get done.” 

Taylor laughed as he pulled away from me and stood up, grabbing my hand to help me to my feet. “Yeah, I know. That's why I had to threaten to tell mom that I know that he keeps playboy magazines under his mattress in order to keep him from coming out here to yell at you.” 

\--

The trip home took 12 years and by the time we got back home, I felt like I’d aged 40 years. Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating, but time really did feel like it’d slowed down to a stop. When we pulled into the driveway, I had my seat belt unbuckled and the van door open before mom had even put it in park. She yelled at me as I ran to the Miller’s house, but I was too focused on seeing Ava to pay any attention to what she actually said. I rang the doorbell and waited for someone to answer the door, bouncing on my feet. I couldn’t hear anything coming from the inside, but I rang the bell again, just in case, to make sure that if someone was home, they definitely would have heard me. 

A full minute later, no one had come to the door and there hadn’t been a shout to come in either. My mom would be ashamed of me for doing this, but I even tried the door handle to see if the house was unlocked because I was that impatient to see my best friend, but it was locked tight. Sighing dramatically, I trudged home, though I let myself into the backyard so that I could check on the treehouse. I climbed up the steps hammered into the trunk and hauled myself inside. 

“Something strange has happened here.” I said out loud, hoping that my words would help me understand what I was looking at.

When I finally figured it out, I dropped to my hands and knees and started scrambling around the small floor, gathering all of the ripped paper into one pile, hoping that what I thought wasn’t true. 

Every single picture Ava had ever colored up here, whether it was for me or for her or just for fun, they were torn up into shreds. My throat grew scratchy and I tried to take in a deep breath, but felt like I couldn’t breathe suddenly. I grabbed at my chest and started clawing at it, trying to find a way to open up my airways so that I could stop choking, but I couldn’t. I barely registered the tears running down my face as I somehow managed to make it down from the treehouse to run inside. 

I ran directly into mom as I entered the living room and she reached down, steadying me with one hand as she balanced two bags on her other. “Zac, can you -” She cut herself off as I tried to push past her. “Zac, what happened?” She didn’t let me go and immediately dropped the bags she was holding to the ground. She sat down on the couch and pulled me in front of her, looking me in the eyes. “Zac, I need you to breathe with me, okay? You’re hyperventilating, that means you’re breathing too fast and not taking in as much air as you’re exhaling.” She took my hand and placed it on her chest, over her heart. “Do you feel that, do you feel how steady my heart is beating right now?” I tried to speak, but couldn’t, so instead I just nodded. “Okay, good, that’s good. Now I need you to try to take control of your breathing to match how my heart. Do you think you can do that?” I shook my head and tried to drop my hand, feeling like I couldn’t escape the prison my body had become, but she grasped my hand and kept it where it was. “Yes you can baby. Look at me.” I met her eyes and she smiled. “Follow me. Take a deep breath in,” She inhaled and I tried to follow, though I choked halfway through. “And now breathe it all out.” She blew all her breath out and I did the same, with a lot less to let out. She maintained eye contact with me and finally, my heart stopped feeling like it was going to beat right out of my chest and I didn’t feel like I was going to pass out. “Sit here, I’ll be right back.” 

I took her spot on the couch when she stood up and curled my legs up underneath me. She came back quickly, passing me a cup filled with apple juice. “Drink this, it’ll help you feel a little bit better.” She sat down next to me and just watched me as I drank, not pressing me to talk until I had finished the whole thing. She took the cup and put it on the side table before putting on her serious mom face. “Now, can you tell me what happened?”

“I went over to the Miller’s house and no one was home. I rang the bell twice and no one came to answer. So I went to the treehouse to see if maybe Ava had left me anything and when I got up there, all of her pictures and drawings, they were all ripped up and thrown all over the floor.” 

“Okay, that's very upsetting sweetie, I’m really sorry to hear that. Do you know why they’re ripped up?” 

I shook my head. “No. I think Ava might be mad at me though and it makes me really sad. My stomach has been hurting ever since we left Tulsa and I think she hates me.”

“But you talked to her a few times in Chicago, right? She has to understand that you’re not doing anything to hurt her.” 

I bit my lower lip before shaking my head. “Every time I called her house, Mr. Miller answered the phone. He said she wasn’t there or she couldn’t come to the phone and now I think she’s the one telling him she doesn’t want to talk. What did I do, mom?” My chin quivered and tears started coming to my eyes again. 

“You haven’t talked to her since we left?” A look I’d never seen before came over mom’s face and it scared me. What was she thinking, why did she look… Was she scared? I shook my head. “Okay honey, I need you to stay right here. I need to do something. Everything will be okay, I promise.” She got up from the couch and hurried to the front of the house, calling dad’s name as she did. I wanted to follow after her, but the knots in my stomach had suddenly turned to lead and I was stuck sitting where she’d left me. 

\--

I slept on the couch, hoping that mom would find Ava somewhere and bring her to me. The only dreams I had were nightmares, ones where I could see Ava, but when I tried to scream for her or run to her, she just ignored me and started walking away from me. I woke myself up crying around four in the morning and refused to close my eyes again - I didn’t want to see her leaving me over and over and over again.

Taylor came down a little while later and sat next to me on the couch, reading a book while I tried distracting myself with a comic. Neither of us were actually paying attention to what we were doing, but I knew he was trying to help me stay calm, so I kept pretending. 

Everyone else in the house woke up slowly, mom and dad first, mom making breakfast while dad worked on getting the rest of my brothers and sisters up. Mom made us all sit at the table together to eat, though I could see her looking at me really weird every time I looked over at her. I wanted to ask her if she had talked to Mrs. Miller and found out where Ava was, but something about the look in her eyes stopped me from saying a word. 

The doorbell rang as we were finishing up eating and mom practically ran to answer it. Dad got up and made everyone help to clear off the table, but I snuck away, creeping around the corner so I could see who was at the door. Mom was standing there, her arms crossed over her chest, with a very angry Mr. Miller standing in front of her. I tried to hear their conversation, but they were speaking almost in whispers, though I did hear something about the police showing up and how he didn’t appreciate how nosey my mom was. She said something back about no contact for three weeks and was moving to say something more when Mr. Miller looked behind her and saw me. I stopped moving, I knew I was caught, and my eyes grew big. Mom followed Mr. Miller’s gaze and made eye contact with me. She shook her head at me, just a little, clearly telling me to get out of the room. 

The biggest part of me wanted to argue with her, I wanted to run at Mr. Miller and kick him and scream at him for not letting me talk to Ava for such a long time, but then I remembered the look on my mom's face the night before, so I just turned around and walked back into the kitchen. 

After what felt like hours, mom came back into the kitchen. I turned to her, ready to demand to know what was going on, but then Ava came up behind her and I could barely remember how to breathe. She ran to me and threw her arms around my neck and all I could do was follow her lead. We stood there for a few minutes, actual minutes, with our eyes closed, just hugging each other. For some reason, I couldn’t pull away from her - I could tell she needed me and I knew I would stand there hugging her until the end of the world if she needed me to. 

Finally, she backed up, just a little, and I could see how pale her face was. I took her hand and pulled her up to my bedroom. Taylor and Isaac were in there playing video games, but with one look at me, Taylor turned the TV off and grabbed Isaac’s hand, dragging him out of the room, even as he started arguing that it wasn’t fair for me to get the room all to myself. 

I shut the door behind them and locked it for good measure before leading her to my bed. We sat down next to each other and she sagged into me, causing me to wrap my arms around her. She felt so fragile, like if I squeezed her too tight, she would just break in half, bones, skin, and all. She was already smaller than me, she always had been, but as I ran a hand up and down her back, I could feel her spine through her shirt, all pointy and poking out at me. 

“Thank you.” She finally said, her voice sounding every bit as small as she felt in my arms. 

“For what?” What did she have to thank me for? I didn’t even do anything, except disappear from her life for three weeks. “I let you down.”

Ava shook her head. “No, you didn’t. You kept trying.” 

“Kept trying what?” My brain worked on overload, trying to understand what she was talking about, but I felt like she was talking about a movie I’d never seen and expecting me to know all about it. 

“You kept trying to talk to me. I could hear the phone ring, every time you called, and I knew it was you because my dad always talked to you in the same tone.” She sat up straight and finally looked at my face and I couldn’t help but gasp at how skinny her face looked - She looked like she was starving. 

“You never talked to me though, I thought you were mad at me.” 

Ava shook her head. “I could never be mad at you. I wanted to talk to you, I would scream from my bedroom everytime the phone rang, but dad would never give it to me.”

Cold shot through me and the knots in my stomach returned. I didn’t want to know the answer to the question I was about to ask, but I knew if I didn’t ask, it would just be worse. “Ava, what happened?” 

“Mom went on a business trip. She had to go to Florida, and while she was down there, she decided to visit grandma and grandpa, so she wouldn’t be back for a while.” She leaned back into me and I brought my arms up, ready to protect her from whatever else she was going to say. “Dad locked me in my room as soon as she left. He said that I was always in his way and he had a lot of stuff to do now that mom had decided to abandon her family and he couldn’t handle me.” 

My stomach churned at her confession, I wanted to throw up, who treated their own child like that? She continued. 

“He brought me a sandwich and a glass of water every morning, but that’s all I would get. I was allowed to use the bathroom once a day, though I never knew when that would be, and by the end of the first week, the bread was really old and hard and there was barely any peanut butter on it. I only took a small drink of the water because I didn’t know when I would be able to use the bathroom, and I also knew that I wouldn’t get more, so I had to make it last all day. I was allowed to read all the books in my room, I could play with all of my toys, and I got to sleep in my bed, so it wasn’t that bad, but I really missed my mom.” She paused and I looked down at her, leaning my chin on top of her head. “And I really missed you. And then you started calling and I wanted to talk to you so bad. I begged my dad to let me talk to you, I promised him we would only talk about you, and I wouldn’t say anything he didn’t want me to, but he never let me. He didn’t even do anything for my birthday.” 

My shirt started feeling wet on my chest and it took me a second, but then I realized that Ava was crying. I wanted to do something to make her feel better, I wanted to take all of the pain and make it my own so that she didn’t have to feel it anymore, but I couldn’t, and I knew I couldn’t, and that just made me really frustrated and before I realized it, I was crying right along with her. 

We sat on my bed for a really long time. There wasn’t a clock in my bedroom, so I couldn’t tell how much time had actually passed, but when her breathing started to even out, I knew it was time for a nap. 

“Hey.” I said softly, shaking her shoulder a little. She started and her eyes popped open, looking at me with fear for a second. Once she recognized who I was, she let out a sigh. I moved her to the side of my bed closest to the wall and then laid down next to her. I threw my favorite blanket over both of us and she made herself comfortable by facing the wall on her side, her back to me. I paused for a second, not sure if she would be okay with me touching her, but finally I moved in so that my chest was pressed to her back and my arm was around her stomach, holding her in my arms, ready to protect her from anything. 

“You make me feel safe.” Ava whispered. 

“I love you.” I whispered back. 

“I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time actually trying to write Zac/OFC, so please... let me know what you think! Comments and kudos are love <3


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